Long before Kubrick or Spielberg ever made war films there was this excellent film about WW1 from 1930. Lew Ayers is excellent as Paul. What makes it so good is that it does not depend on the violence of war in more recent films but concentrates on the human cost. It brilliantly evokes the wild enthusiasm people had for signing up and the contrast of the reality. A true classic of the cinema made more enjoyable by this remastered version.

A devastating story of war and a generation destroyed. In 1914 a group of German schoolboys, idealistic and inflamed with youthful patriotism, set off to fight in the "glorious" war. During their brutal basic training disenchantment begins. Then, boarding a train for the front, they see the wounded being rushed back to the hospitals, and they begin to grasp the grim reality of war.
On their first night in action they come under heavy attack. In the trenches, they begin...